On the night of February 22, 1998, seven significant tornadoes tore across east Central Florida between 10:55 pm and 2:30 am. They killed 42 people and injured more than 260, making it the most devastating tornado outbreak in the state’s history.
Forecasters at the National Weather Service office in Melbourne had seen trouble coming months earlier. A strong El Niño was in place, and El Niño can pull the jet stream south over the Florida peninsula, setting the stage for strong-to-violent tornadoes.
In other words, warm water in the Pacific Ocean helped spawn tornadoes in Florida.
That warm water is back. This time, it could be the strongest on record.
A historic El Niño
On October 15, NOAA released its 2026–27 U.S. Winter Outlook, and El Niño is all over it.
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of a strong-to-very-strong El Niño through early 2027 above 83%. It gives the same 83% chance that, by the October-to-December period, the event will be stronger than any El Niño since at least 1950.
“As we know from decades of observations, a very strong El Niño will likely bring a southward and eastward shift to the jet stream for the contiguous U.S.,” said Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service.
For December through February, NOAA favors: - Wetter-than-average conditions across the southern tier, from the Southwest to the Southeast, and along the East Coast
- Warmer-than-average temperatures across the Pacific Northwest, Midwest, Mississippi Valley, much of the East, and Alaska
- Drought relief in the Southwest, Southern Great Plains, Southeast, and parts of the East Coast by late January
That’s a tendency, not a guarantee. “You can think of El Niño as setting preferred pathways for weather systems to repeat over certain locations, but it is not going to tell every weather system exactly what to do and where to go,” Michelle L’Heureux, a physical scientist at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center, told ABC News.
Too much of a good thing
Rain sounds like good news for places stuck in drought. Often it is. But Graham also warned that “too much precipitation on dry soil can fuel destructive flash floods and mudslides.”
The 1997–98 El Niño showed what that looks like. That February, Santa Barbara received 21.74 inches of rain, its wettest month on record. California counted 17 storm-related deaths that winter, and 35 of its counties were declared federal disaster areas.
Some good news: El Niño tends to announce itself early. In 1997, NOAA’s forecasts gave the public up to six months to prepare. California’s storm damage that winter came to $1.1 billion—half the $2.2 billion in losses from the 1982–83 El Niño.
Why you should care: A very strong El Niño doesn’t follow the usual winter playbook. For organizations across the South and along the East Coast, the bigger threat this season may be flooded roads and saturated hillsides, not snow and ice. And as Florida learned in 1998, a wetter winter can bring severe storms, too.
Check whether your winter weather plans cover flash floods and mudslides, not just snow days. Know which employees commute through or work in flood-prone areas, and how you’ll reach them quickly. If your plan has gaps, this guide to building a flood emergency response plan is a good place to start.
As Graham put it, “Now is the time for communities and individuals to plan ahead for the upcoming winter.” |
